Update: I was unfortunately not aware of Shamus Young's severe criticism of Fallout 3 available here to link in the original piece and I regret that. It dovetails rather nicely with what I've written and it's much better executed than my piece. I strongly recommend anyone...

L.A. Noire Screenshots

L.A. Noire is a dark and violent detective thriller set against the backdrop of Los Angeles in the post-war years of the late 1940s and delivered with Rockstar’s signature attention to atmosphere and detail.

In L.A. Noire, players will take the reins of newly minted detective Cole Phelps (Aaron Staton of Mad Men) as he solves gruesome and mind-bending cases, interrogates suspects, and rises through the ranks of the LAPD.

MotionScan L.A. Noire’s Revolutionary Technology

The foundation of L.A. Noire is a brand new technology called MotionScan that enables us to capture and scan every nuance of a real actor’s facial performances and put them right into the game itself. It provides a level of realism, detail, performance and emotion never seen before in a videogame, and brings them to life in a totally new way. This goes beyond the limited grid of data points delivered by traditional motion capture – these are the actual performances themselves, scanned and placed onto our digital characters. This marriage of gameplay and technology allows players for the first time ever to truly feel like a detective, reading the emotional behavior of every character. Furthermore, MotionScan lends itself perfectly to this type of game: one that focuses on characters and performances where everyone has something to hide.

Quick Facts About MotionScan

• MotionScan is a new performance capture technology and an alternative to traditional motion capture

• MotionScan utilizes 32 high-definition cameras that completely surround the actor and capture the performance in 3D at 30 frames-per-second

• MotionScan is a technology provided by Depth Analysis, a sister company to Team Bondi and part of a special partnership with Rockstar Games

• Every character in L.A. Noire uses MotionScan technology and over 400 actors were filmed making the game

• L.A. Noire will be the first video game ever to utilize MotionScan technology L.A Noire is an interactive detective story set in the classic noir period of the late 1940's. L.A. Noire blends action, detection and complex storytelling and draws players into an open-ended challenge to solve a series of gruesome murders. Set in a perfectly recreated Los Angeles before freeways, with a post-war backdrop of corruption, drugs and jazz, L.A. Noire will truly blend cinema and gaming.

Content on this page comes directly from press releases and fact sheets provided by publishers and developers and was not written by the Game Revolution staff.